Indholdsfortegnelse for 06/06/24 i Autosport

We’ve just had the Monaco Grand Prix and Indianapolis 500, which can mean only one thing. It’s time for the third of motorsport’s Big Three events: the Le Mans 24 Hours. We’ve got our traditional free 52-page guide this week, covering all the contenders, with Porsche, Ferrari and Toyota the current favourites. Next week, we’ll bring you the latest from the Test Day to see what’s changed ahead of the race on the 15-16 June. In this magazine, Alex Kalinauckas talks to Bruno Famin (page 18) to find out what is going on at Alpine, which seems to be having so many staff changes at the moment it’s hard to keep up with (p4)! F1 pundit Karun Chandhok took time away from the GP scene to visit the Indy 500…

FORMULA 1 Leading Formula 1 drivers are calling for changes to the red-flag tyre rules in the wake of an uneventful Monaco Grand Prix. Last month’s race was red-flagged on lap one after a crash involving Sergio Perez and both Haas drivers. Under the stoppage all drivers were allowed to change tyres, negating the need for mandatory pitstops later on and starving the race of any strategy. The top 10 from qualifying finished in the same positions. Several drivers have urged the FIA to revisit the red flag rules. “Our strategy was ruined as we had to put the medium on to the end and everyone had a free stop,” said sixth-placed Max Verstappen. Lando Norris, who finished fourth, added: “The red flag ruined any other opportunities that might have…

BMW has taken the wraps of the evolution version of its M4 GT3 racer due to come on stream next season. The updates to a car that was released to customers for the 2022 season are focused upon driveability and feature revised aerodynamics, including a rear wing with a greater range of adjustability. The M4 GT3 EVO also features new anti-roll bars front and rear, larger rear brake discs and an easier-to-adjust differential. The list price for the car, which was unveiled ahead of last weekend’s Nurburgring 24 Hours, is €578,000 less taxes, which converts to £492,000 – so start saving now!…

FIA Five-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Emanuele Pirro has been installed as the new president of the FIA Single Seater Commission. The 62-year-old Italian (left), who recently left McLaren, where he headed up the team’s junior driver programme, replaces ex-F1 team boss Giancarlo Minardi. Pirro’s role has not been officially announced by the FIA but he is known to have taken the reins last month. He becomes the second ex-Benetton F1 driver to take charge, after Gerhard Berger. Others at the helm have been current F1 chief Stefano Domenicali plus the late Barry Bland and Bob Fernley. Pirro is viewed as a more hands-on president than Minardi. He was called in by the FIA as a ‘troubleshooter’ to the stewards during the chaotic 2015 European F3 season, while his…

WORLD RALLYCROSS Street racing could return to the Midlands next year after the World Rallycross Championship announced that it has entered discussions with the organisers of MotoFest Coventry and is targeting an event from 2025. A proposed layout has already been drafted, and a feasibility study conducted by circuit designer Driven International has been submitted to the FIA World Motor Sport Council for approval. A period of consultation will take place involving local residents in the coming months. The event, which would come 35 years after the last edition of the Birmingham Superprix for Formula 3000, follows WRX’s inaugural city-centre race in Hong Kong last November. Rallycross Promoter managing director Arne Dirks said that this had “encouraged us to explore further metropolitan locations”. An inaugural visit to Australia at an…

Had Andretti been among the myriad applicants to join the Formula 1 grid 15 years ago, it surely would have managed to beat some of the pretenders to an entry. It wouldn’t have taken much back then: a semi-competent technical operation, some facilities larger than a broom cupboard, and an initial ‘yes’ to taking a Cosworth V8 for a year or two. That said, only two of the four teams granted entries that year possessed all three qualities… Perhaps Andretti would have made the cut during the 2014 application process too, when Haas won the tender to join for either 2015 or 2016. F1 wasn’t in particularly good health at that time: Caterham had gone to the wall; Marussia required a last-minute bail-out; and money troubles would later befall Lotus,…

Even before he took himself out of the 2024 Monaco Grand Prix in an aggressive swoop on team-mate Pierre Gasly, it had become clear that something had changed in Esteban Ocon’s relationship with Alpine. This is Ocon-Alpine – the sensational winning combination of the 2021 Hungarian GP, with more than a little help from his then team-mate Fernando Alonso… Ahead of the action getting under way in Monaco, Ocon had only spoken vaguely of how “if you do a good job on track there should be nothing stopping you in the future” in terms of remaining with the team beyond 2024. His lack of encouragement for his employer spoke loudest in the cramped press room. Earlier in 2024, Alpine team insiders had suggested that Ocon’s hollering celebrations at escaping Q1…

Sami Pajari managed to tame Sardinia’s brutal gravel stages to claim a second career WRC2 win and ignite his title aspirations. Pajari and co-driver Enni Malkonen bounced back from a disappointing retirement in Portugal in style as the pair took a comfortable victory by 32.3 seconds from the Citroen of championship leader Yohan Rossel and Benjamin Boulloud. Pajari briefly lost the lead to former M-Sport Rally1 driver Pierre-Louis Loubet on Friday before ending the day with an 18.3s lead. A technical issue with his Skoda Fabia on Saturday ended Loubet’s hopes. Once in front, Pajari steered the new Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 to its second consecutive win following Jan Solans’s maximum score in Portugal. The 22-year-old Finn extended his lead to 54.7s heading into Sunday’s four stages, before cruising to…

NURBURGRING 24 HOURS NURBURGRING (DEU) 1-2 JUNE The Scherer Sport PHX Audi team won the 52nd edition of the Nurburgring 24 Hours with Frank Stippler, Christopher Mies, Ricardo Feller and Dennis Marschall, in what will be remembered as an extremely unsatisfactory race for the 240,000 spectators. A net seven hours and 22 minutes were driven under green before the race had to be stopped due to foggy conditions, never to get going again. The Scherer Audi was out front at the time of the interruption, in a lead that reflected the course of the race. On Sunday, only five more laps were completed behind the safety car to enable 44 drivers to complete their mandatory laps. Officially, the race was not stopped, but the chequered flag was waved early. This…

NASCAR CUP ST LOUIS (USA) 2 JUNE ROUND 15/36 Austin Cindric picked up a surprise NASCAR Cup victory last Sunday when his Team Penske Ford stablemate Ryan Blaney ran out of fuel in the final laps. Blaney, the reigning series champion, looked primed to pick up his first win of the 2024 season after surviving a late-race duel for the lead with Christopher Bell’s Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. When Bell fell back with an engine issue, Blaney moved out to a sizeable lead over Cindric, but it all disappeared with two of 240 laps to go when the #12 Ford fell off the pace. Out of fuel, Blaney slowed quickly, and Cindric inherited the lead. The 25-year-old son of Team Penske president Tim Cindric thereafter held off Denny Hamlin (JGR…

EQUIPE CLASSIC RACING Over 30 Lotus Elan 26Rs are set to take part in a celebration contest from Equipe Classic Racing at Silverstone this weekend for the model’s 60th birthday. A total of 34 of the Elans had entered at the time Autosport closed for press, with Equipe also relaxing its rules that normally ban pro drivers to enable them to take part. Separate trophies will be awarded to the top pro and amateur finishers, while Sam Tordoff, Gordon Shedden, Rory Butcher and Scott Mansell are among some of the pros set to take part in the hour-long contest on the Grand Prix layout. Working on the race alongside Tony Thompson Racing has been special for Equipe partner Rob Cull, whose father – who died last year – helped to…

MINI 7 RACING CLUB Around 70 entries are expected across two Mini 7 Racing Club grids as its categories make their latest appearance at Thruxton in support of the British Touring Car Championship this weekend. Each of the Miglia and Se7ens fields are due to feature over 30 cars and provide slipstreaming action around the Hampshire speedbowl in two 20-minute races apiece. Former BTCC drivers Andrew Jordan and Jeff Smith are among the Miglia frontrunners, while race winner Endaf Owens is returning, and reigning Miglia champion Aaron Smith has a busy weekend in store as he plans to contest both divisions. The Se7en S-Class is set to boast four members of the Page family with Giles, Andrew, Jonathon and Matthew all battling for honours. “We’re really thrilled with that number…

AMERICAN SPEEDFEST US muscle cars from Ford and Chevrolet will go head to head in two special races at this weekend’s American SpeedFest, with a diverse range of machines set to take part. A points-scoring system has been devised for the two 20-minute Ford vs Chevy contests at Brands Hatch that not only takes into account finishing positions, qualifying performance and fastest laps, but there is also the chance for fans to get involved. “I’m really pleased – all the exhausts are going to be open headers so it’s going to be loud and good fun,” said organiser Simeon Chodosh. “We’ve got some nice tote bags with branded goodies and we will go round and find some different families at random and ask them to come down to our marquee…

750MC Paul Cook (E46 M3) claimed a brace of overall and Class M1 victories in the BMW Car Club Racing Championship in front of a large BMW Live crowd at Oulton Park last Saturday, repeating his double victory from Donington Park. He finished ahead of Wayne Lewis in his similar M3 before the duo teamed up to take third overall in the annual ‘Ultimate BMW Race’ that concluded the day’s track action. Defending BMW Car Club Racing champion Steve Schweikhardt earlier won twice in Class 6, as the remaining divisional wins were shared by Clive Watson (E46 Compact) and David Aspden (Z3) in M2, then Gareth Thomas and William Lake in Cup. Victory in the Ultimate BMW Race went the way of Kevin Clarke (E46 M3 CSL) for the third…

SPECIAL SALOONS & MODSPORTS/FUTURE CLASSICS Race 1 James Plant (Austin-Healey 3000-Chevrolet) Race 2 Andy Southcott (MG Lenham Midget-Vauxhall) JAGUAR CHAMPIONSHIP/MG TROPHY Race 1 Jack Robinson (Jaguar XK) Race 2 Colin Philpott (Jaguar XJS) MIDGET & SPRITE CHALLENGE Races 1 & 2 Paul Sibley (Midget) CLASSIC K/MIKE HAWTHORN CHALLENGE Malcolm Johnson (Lotus Elan GTS, above) SWINGING SIXTIES Stephen Pickering (Sunbeam Tiger, below) For full results visit: tsl-timing.com…

SPA GB3 1-2 JUNE Hitech’s Tymek Kucharczyk moved into the lead of the GB3 Championship after his “best weekend” in the series at Spa, where the Pole secured a brace of wins. He claimed victory in Saturday’s two races, the first one in particularly dominant style, and then kept his nose clean in a chaotic finale on Sunday. He rose from 12th on the partially reversed grid to fourth and, with pre-race championship leader Louis Sharp among those in strife, took the championship initiative as a result. Kucharczyk claimed his third pole position of the year with a record-breaking lap in qualifying, though JHR’s John Bennett earned pole for race two, the grid for that contest formed by each driver’s second quickest times. Despite a damp track, race one was…

BOOK REVIEW HOW TO WIN A GRAND PRIX: FROM PIT LANE TO PODIUM – THE INSIDE TRACK Bernie Collins RRP £22.00 Formula 1 nerds, rejoice, for in How to win a Grand Prix, Bernie Collins delivers a level of insight that digs deep into the complex world of the championship and delights in the details. There’s a lot of reading material available for those who could be described as casual fans, where the fundamentals are explained and there is a minimal level of digging done to give a satisfying feeling that you’ve learned something by flicking through the pages. What Collins has done here is take a real risk by appealing to the hardcore audience, going all-in on the details and granting an access-all-areas pass to the pitwall and the…

A young Jochen Rindt raises a fist as he perches precariously on the front of the Ferrari 250LM in which he has shared victory in the 1965 Le Mans 24 Hours. His partner Masten Gregory and most of the car are hidden from view by the mass of North American Racing Team members joining him for the celebratory ride, following an unexpected win for the unfancied and outdated car that benefited from the failures of the works Ferraris and the factory Ford effort. The man in the hat straddling the right front headlight is Ed Hugus, who may or may not have taken a stint behind the wheel during the night. Hugus’s claim to have played an active role remains unproven and contentious. Little could anyone know that Ferrari’s ninth…

Sportscar racing was in the doldrums at the back end of the 1970s. The Group 5 silhouette GT formula hadn’t taken off as expected, and there was waning interest in the Group 6 prototype category. Porsche only dusted off its 936 design because it had landed a late sponsorship deal – and rolled one car out of its museum. No wonder the Kremer Racing team went to the 24 Hours brimming with confidence with the new K3 version of its take on Porsche’s 935 Group 5 racer. It reckoned it was more than a match for anyone else, the rest of the mostly Cosworth-powered prototype field and the other 11 935s of various iterations lined up against it. Its confidence was borne out by victory for Klaus Ludwig and the…

Alpine produced its most competitive World Endurance Championship performance with its new A424 LMDh at Spa, but that’s not reflected by the results. The ORECA-based car’s best finish remains the seventh place earned on its debut in Qatar thanks to canny fuel strategy, but in Belgium the Signatech-run cars were top 10 contenders from the off After cracking Hyperpole for the first time, the #35 machine of Charles Milesi, Paul-Loup Chatin and Jules Gounon placed ninth while the sister #36 entry of Nicolas Lapierre, Mick Schumacher and Matthieu Vaxiviere got scuppered by pitting just before the red flag and was a lap down at the restart. They finished 12th, but only five drivers set a lap faster than Vaxiviere – and four were in Porsches… The French team will target a…

Everyone remembers McLaren’s winning debut at Le Mans in 1995, but a run of top-six results continued as the F1 race project wound down. Two long-tail McLaren F1 GTRs were on the entry for the 24 Hours in 1998, and one of them came away with fourth place in a year of massive manufacturer involvement. It was almost as much of a shock as the outright victory three years before. The BMW-engined McLaren wasn’t close to the pace of the new breed of GT1 machinery from Toyota, Porsche and Mercedes, nor the fastest of the open-top LMP prototypes – the two McLarens in the race qualified 15 seconds off pole. More to the point, the privateer McLaren that came home in among the factories had a 57-year-old amateur among its drivers.…

LE MANS HYPERCAR LMP2 LMGT3 WEDNESDAY 12 JUNE 0900-1000 Fun Cup Free Practice 1 1030-1115 Lamborghini Super Trofeo Free Practice 1145-1245 Road to Le Mans Free Practice 1 1400-1700 Le Mans 24 Hours Free Practice 1 1730-1815 Lamborghini Super Trofeo Qualifying 1900-2000 Le Mans 24 Hours Qualifying 2030-2130 Road to Le Mans Free Practice 2 2200-0000 Le Mans 24 Hours Free Practice 2 THURSDAY 13 JUNE 0900-1000 Fun Cup Free Practice 2 1030-1050 Road to Le Mans Qualifying 1 1105-1125 Road to Le Mans Qualifying 2 1200-1245 Fun Cup Qualifying 1315-1400 Lamborghini Super Trofeo Race 1 1500-1800 Le Mans 24 Hours Free Practice 3 1830-1925 Road to Le Mans Race 1 2000-2030 Le Mans 24 Hours Hyperpole 2200-2300 Le Mans 24 Hours Free Practice 4 FRIDAY 14 JUNE 0900-1300 Fun…

FORMULA 1 Esteban Ocon is on the Formula 1 driver market for the 2025 season after Alpine decided not to renew the Frenchman’s expiring contract. Amid a tough start to the season for the struggling team, Ocon had already been exploring alternative options for next season and beyond. But his controversial collision with team-mate Pierre Gasly at the recent Monaco Grand Prix, which left Alpine’s team management furious, appears to have accelerated that process. Ocon will continue to drive for the team for the remainder of this season, starting with this weekend’s Canadian GP. “It’s been a significant period of my life to be racing at this team in Formula 1,” said Ocon. “While I’ve been here for five years as a full-time racing driver, my professional career started at…

FORMULA E Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds has hinted that the series has held talks with Ferrari over the Italian marque joining the all-electric championship in some capacity. Discussions have arisen as Ferrari prepares this month to open its first electrification plant, where it will produce its own batteries and fleet of electric vehicles, beginning with its first all-electric car by the end of 2025. The project has included a significant investment of €500million and the creation of 250 jobs, all of which has led to potential contact with FE. When asked whether talks had been held with Ferrari, Dodds replied: “Maybe. “Clearly, I’d rather have them in than not in. It would elevate the championship. Whether it’s exponential or game-changing would remain to be seen, but clearly they sit…

INDYCAR British IndyCar rookie Tom Blomqvist has been benched by Meyer Shank Racing following his first-corner shunt in the Indy 500. He was replaced for last weekend’s Detroit round by four-time 500 winner Helio Castroneves, who stayed on in the cockpit following what was planned as a one-off outing in MSR’s extra car at Indy. Castroneves, who has a minority ownership role at MSR, will remain on board for this weekend’s round at Road America. The Brazilian explained that the decision was made to cement the #66 car’s position in IndyCar’s Leaders Circle, which pays out more than $1million for those that place in the top 22 spots (of the 25 eligible cars) at the end of the year. “Let’s stop the bleeding first and then consider what’s happening moving…

NASCAR NASCAR Cup Series heavyweight Stewart-Haas Racing is pulling out of competition at the end of 2024. The team ran co-owner Tony Stewart to the title in 2011, and Kevin Harvick took the crown in 2014. But after winning 26 races from 2018-20, it has been victorious just four times since then. The retirements of Harvick and Aric Almirola from full-time racing at the end of last season were accompanied by the loss of some of SHR’s major backers. In a joint statement, Stewart and Gene Haas said: “The commitment needed to extract maximum performance while providing sustainability is incredibly demanding, and we’ve reached a point in our respective personal and business lives where it’s time to pass the torch.” With four full-time Fords in SHR’s stable, that leaves doubt…

Tech3 rookie Pedro Acosta described the situation as a “soap opera”. Autosport’s revelation on Monday that Ducati had made a U-turn on its decision to promote Jorge Martin to its factory team in favour of Marc Marquez wasn’t followed by an EastEnders-style cliffhanger outro. But it was the shock the 2025 rider market was waiting for, the fallout of which being fast-moving and far-reaching. Martin had been told prior to last weekend’s Italian Grand Prix that he was Ducati’s guy for 2025. Last Sunday afternoon, he was told otherwise. Jilted, Martin went straight into Aprilia’s loving arms and penned a multi-year deal. It’s a massive coup for the Italian marque – the laughing stock of the grid not five years ago – and a move that it wasted no time…

Like everybody else, I have a bucket list of things that I keep creating. And, like most people, the rate at which the list grows generally exceeds the rate at which we actually do the things on it. With work and family commitments, time is the most valuable commodity and, unless we proactively decide to do something, that bucket list will only go one way. In the past year, my mum passed away quite suddenly when she was just 65, and I also turned 40 in January. These two events have been a catalyst for me deciding to set the realistic goal of ticking off just one thing from my list every year. Top of the list was to go to the Indianapolis 500, and I thought it would be…

When all around is chaos during an IndyCar street race, the smart money goes on two drivers: Scott Dixon and Marcus Ericsson. Add extreme fuel saving into the equation, and there’s only one winner – and that’s six-time series champion and now 58-time race winner Dixon. That the Kiwi veteran’s Chip Ganassi Racing machine crossed the finish line 0.86 seconds ahead of Ericsson’s similarly Honda-powered Andretti Global entry doesn’t tell the tale of a caution-packed, dry-wet-dry race, where 47 of the 100 laps were run behind the pace car. It was meant to be a simple two-stop strategy, but only the lead duo and fourth-placed Kyle Kirkwood stuck to that plan. They smartly eschewed going to rain tyres when a mid-race shower briefly soaked the track, and Dixon took advantage…

IMSA SPORTSCAR DETROIT (USA) 1 JUNE ROUND 5/11 When the green flag waved to commence Saturday’s 100-minute IMSA SportsCar race on the streets of downtown Detroit, two teams and manufacturers with strong local ties seemed almost certain to sweep the honours. Porsche Penske Motorsport and Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports appeared to have dominant cars in their respective GTP and GTD Pro categories. Each locked out the front row and led convincingly for long stretches, but once again the unpredictability of temporary tracks was on full display, and neither was able to equate speed with victory. Instead, an opportunistic pass by WTR with Andretti Acura driver Ricky Taylor on the Porsche 963 of Mathieu Jaminet with 26 minutes remaining proved decisive. Taylor and Portuguese team-mate Filipe Albuquerque went on…

MOTOGP MUGELLO (ITA) 2 JUNE ROUND 7/21 Reigning title holder Francesco Bagnaia was in impeccable form throughout the Italian Grand Prix weekend, clinching a double win on his home turf to slash Jorge Martin’s championship lead by more than half. Bagnaia had already made it clear during the previous round at Barcelona that he would not let Martin run away with the championship, but the factory Ducati star’s final-lap mistake in the sprint race in Spain was seen as a blot on his copybook. So the first priority for the Italian was to set his sprint record right, which he did in Tuscany by taking an impressive 1.5-second win over the Gresini Ducati of Marc Marquez. The key to Bagnaia’s success on Saturday was his brilliant launch from second on…

TOURING CAR LEGENDS Tin-top ace Steve Soper is among the entries for the first round of a shortened schedule for the Historic Sports Car Club’s new Touring Car Legends series at Donington Park this weekend. The category’s inaugural season was originally due to feature five events, but this was scaled back to two – with Brands Hatch in July joining Donington – to allow time for interest to grow. The series chiefly caters for Group A touring cars of the 1980s and early 1990s, while Group 2 machines from the 1970s are also welcome. Soper is due to share Toby Partridge’s BMW E30, which is one of five M3s on the initial 10-strong entry at Donington. Other cars include a trio of Ford Sierra RS500s and Paul Eaton’s Holden Commodore.…

THRUXTON The Racing4Charity karting event in aid of the Motor Neurone Disease Association will return to Thruxton after a one-year break, featuring a star-studded line-up. The two-hour event, organised by ex-Formula 1 driver David Brabham and Bill Williams, whose brother Gideon died from MND in 2022, will be held today (Thursday) at Thruxton’s kart track ahead of this weekend’s British Touring Car round. BTCC drivers Tom Chilton and Dan Rowbottom will compete, as will British GT father-and-son duo Rob and Ricky Collard and a line-up consisting of current GB3 and GB4 drivers. A total of 13 teams are set to enter. An auction will be held on both Thursday and Saturday for motorsport memorabilia, including an e-scooter from Pure Electric signed by Williams F1 driver Alex Albon. “The recent loss…

Alastair Boulton’s Praga R1T topped the times for last weekend’s closed-roads sprint at the 10th anniversary edition of MotoFest Coventry. Despite initially having trouble getting off the line as the car normally does rolling starts, he set the fastest time on Sunday, but was closely followed by the nimble Caterham of Matt Bramall, who only had a fraction of the power. Chris Edwards in his remarkable self-built Mazda 323 GTX was the star of Saturday – he was quickest all day despite running on road-legal tyres. MICHELIN AT FESTIVAL Michelin has been named as official tyre partner for this year’s Silverstone Festival. The company will curate a special display at the 23-25 August event that celebrates Michelin’s history and future innovations, with many of the cars present taking part in…

MSVR The new-look Clio Cup GB series launched at Brands Hatch last Saturday with just six entries, three of them the latest Gen5 machines, with three Gen4 models running in a guest class. A small field on the full Grand Prix circuit diminished the spectacle, but close competition promised a brighter future. There were wins for ex-Mini Challenge Cooper class man Nicky Taylor and Clio veteran Ben Colburn, as last year’s top Junior Saloon Car driver, Daire Flock, finished second in both races. “I drove the car for the first time on Friday, and going into qualifying today on slicks was a complete unknown,” said Taylor. Less than a second covered the top three after 12 laps of the opener, supporting Colburn’s assertion that this showed how good the championship…

KNOCKHILL KMSC 1-2 JUNE Robbie Dalgleish carved a sizeable chunk out of Jason Ballantyne’s Scottish Mini Cooper Cup points lead after a near-perfect weekend at Knockhill. The championship only raced on Saturday, running the anti-clockwise version of the Fife circuit on a weekend that used both configurations, but produced action aplenty across the three races. Having missed the season-opener at Kirkistown in March, Dalgleish knew he needed to make the most of the day and took two class wins from pole and a third to reduce the deficit to Ballantyne to 15 points, although Dalgleish now leads on dropped scores. Dalgleish led race one early on, with Oly Mortimer close behind before a puncture curtailed the latter’s chances. That elevated Ballantyne to second after brilliantly squeezing past Ian Munro around…

GB3 Race 1 (8 laps) 1 Tymek Kucharczyk; 2 John Bennett +1.811s; 3 Louis Sharp; 4 Ugo Ugochukwu; 5 Will Macintyre; 6 Noah Ping. Fastest lap Macintyre 2m31.115s (103.70mph). Pole Kucharczyk. Starters 22. Race 2 (7 laps) 1 Kucharczyk; 2 Bennett +0.452s; 3 Sharp; 4 Ugochukwu; 5 Macintyre; 6 Kanato Le. FL Ping 2m18.065s (113.46mph). P Bennett. S 22. Race 3 (9 laps) 1 Macintyre; 2 Gerrard Xie +0.838s; 3 Ping; 4 Kucharczyk; 5 Le; 6 McKenzy Cresswell. FL Macintyre 2m17.160s (114.20mph). P Hugo Schwarze. S 22. Points 1 Kucharczyk (below) 183; 2 Macintyre 174; 3 Sharp 170; 4 Ugochukwu 155; 5 Bennett 148; 6 Cresswell 127. For full results visit: gb-3.net…

Max Verstappen’s sim racing exploits once again hit the headlines last month, when the Dutchman combined winning the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix with achieving virtual Nurburgring 24 Hours glory over the same – very hectic – weekend. And another driver who was part of the sim success for his Team Redline squad was Chris Lulham. The 21-year-old Briton has seen first-hand how much effort the three-time Formula 1 champion puts into his Esports competitions and enjoys racing alongside him. “His dedication is unparalleled – you can see why he is where he is,” says Lulham of his illustrious team-mate. “He really pushes to make the time for it [his sim racing], and he’s not exactly got a lot of free time! I feel like this year Max is involving himself…

There were times during the 1960s and 1970s when Formula 1 machines weren’t always the fastest cars in the world around a road course. Big-banger sportscars sometimes grabbed that accolade, and few provided bigger bangs than the machines of the Canadian-American Challenge Cup. Can-Am’s no-holds-barred heyday ran from 1966 to 1974, and Jackie Oliver was the era’s final champion. Driving the Tony Southgate-designed Shadow-Chevrolet DN4, the Briton won four of the five rounds, leading team-mate George Follmer to a 1-2 in the standings. Despite starting 48 world championship F1 grands prix for Lotus, BRM, McLaren and Shadow, it’s two sportscars that come to mind when the 81-year-old is asked to pick a favourite. “It has to be the Shadow or the Porsche 917,” says Oliver, who won the 1969 Le…

Joest Racing had won the Le Mans 24 Hours for Porsche in 1996 after doing a deal to run its pair of stillborn WSC95 LMP prototypes. Good job the arrangement allowed it to keep the winning car. Fast forward 12 months, and it didn’t have a lot of option but to turn out at the French enduro with the chassis it now owned if it wanted to continue racing. The result was another victory, not like the previous year ahead of a pair of factory cars, but this time in front of two McLarens. Joest saved Porsche’s bacon with its solo entry driven by Tom Kristensen, Michele Alboreto and Stefan Johansson. There was a stark choice facing Joest ahead of 1997. It had lost its primary programme with Opel in…

Lamborghini has yet to crack the top 10 in the World Endurance Championship with its single-car SC63 LMDh fielded by Iron Lynx. The Ligier-based car’s development was set back by a test crash at Paul Ricard, and motorsport boss Giorgio Sanna’s unexpected departure hardly helped matters. Sanna’s role is being performed on an interim basis by chief technical officer Rouven Mohr, who admits that prior to the Qatar opener “we had more or less two performance tests”. The WEC entry assigned to Edoardo Mortara, Mirko Bortolotti and Daniil Kvyat has a best finish of 12th to date. This came at Imola before a rear axle problem at Spa led to the car’s first retirement. Preparation for Le Mans isn’t helped by the fact that Lamborghini’s second entry there only races…

HYPERCAR The top class brings together bespoke Le Mans Hypercars (four-wheel-drive hybrids and front-axle hybrids in the case of Isotta) that have been eligible to race at Le Mans since 2021, plus the LMDh prototypes that debuted last year. These are based on an LMP2 spine and incorporate a spec rear-axle hybrid system built by Williams Advanced Engineering, Bosch and Xtrac. The two philosophies are equalised under a subtly different Balance of Performance system for 2024. All cars use Michelin tyres. LMP2 Squeezed out of the World Endurance Championship by Hypercar’s booming popularity, LMP2 is the secondary prototype division for privateers running off-the-peg chassis produced by one of four constructors and powered by the spec Gibson V8. ORECA’s 07 fills out the entire grid for a second straight year, with…

FORMULA 1 Ferrari Formula 1 technical director Enrico Cardile has been approached by Aston Martin over a possible switch to the team. Aston Martin team owner Lawrence Stroll is continuing his push to turn his Silverstone-based squad into winners. An earlier, personal approach to snap up Red Bull’s departing designer Adrian Newey appears not to have been successful, so now Cardile is emerging as one of Aston’s next targets to further beef up its technical structure. Cardile has played a large part in Ferrari’s upswing in form with the SF-24 as technical director on the chassis side. Meanwhile, Newey continues to be linked to Ferrari. A move there, even as a super-consultant, could overshadow its current technical chiefs. Newey is taking his time before deciding whether or not to return…

WRC The World Rally Championship will return to the Middle East in 2025 following the announcement of a new 10-year deal with Saudi Arabia. The WRC has been eyeing a return for some time to the region, which it last visited in 2011 for Rally Jordan. Rally Saudi Arabia is set to host the final round of next year’s expected 14-event championship in November, and could be set to hold that berth for the next five years at least. The rally will be held around Jeddah, with stages featuring a mixture of mountain and desert roads. A test event is likely to be held early next year as part of the Middle East Rally Championship. “From 2025 we will proudly host Formula 1, Formula E, Extreme E, the Dakar Rally…

MACAU GRAND PRIX Formula Regional cars from the Middle East championship have been selected to contest the inaugural running of the Macau Grand Prix for the category this November. The FIA announced at the end of last month that the race would no longer be run for Formula 3 cars, as it was from 1983-2019 and once more in 2023, and that the switch was being made to FR. With the FR series around the globe being run for different spec chassis-engine combinations, this raised the tricky prospect of performance balancing, but now FIA single-seater strategy and operations chief Francois Sicard has opened up to Autosport on his plan. A deal has been done with FR Middle East promoter Davide de Gobbi, whose Shanghai-based Top Speed company has overseen the…

MOTOGP Marc Marquez is to return to a factory MotoGP team in 2025, with Ducati deciding to give the eight-time world champion the seat over Jorge Martin. Ducati looked set to promote Martin – the 2023 runner-up and current championship leader – from the Pramac satellite team to its factory squad, and Gazzetta dello Sport broke the news on the eve of last weekend’s Italian GP. While this meant Marquez (below) was likely to switch from Gresini to Pramac on a factory bike, he told the media it was “not an option”, scuppering Ducati’s plans. For Marquez, staying with Ducati meant a factory bike at Gresini or moving to the works team. The former looked unlikely, as either Pramac or VR46 would get Ducati factory exclusivity in 2025. Ducati, therefore,…

Montreal Length 2.710 miles Number of laps 70 UK START TIMES Friday 7 June FP1 1830 FP2 2200 Saturday 8 June FP3 1730 QUALIFYING 2100 Sunday 9 June RACE 1900 CATCH THE RACE LIVE SKY SPORTS F1 BBC RADIO 5 LIVE TV Highlights CHANNEL 4 0020 (Monday) TYRE ALLOCATION CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS Drivers Constructors MONTREAL STATS Previous winners 2023 POLE POSITION Max Verstappen 1m25.858s POLE LAP RECORD Sebastian Vettel 1m10.240s (2019) RACE LAP RECORD Valtteri Bottas 1m13.078s (2019) Montreal podiums…

When the World Rally Championship chose Sardinia to trial its new 48-hour format, few could have predicted the concoction of drama, joy and heartbreak that conspired to produce the joint closest victory in series history. Two tenths of a second – it’s barely a blink of an eye. But that was the margin by which Hyundai’s Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja took victory after a puncture three kilometres from the end of the 266.12km event denied Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier a record fifth Sardinia win. You could be forgiven for thinking we’ve been here before. Flashback to 2019… Tanak, then driving for Toyota, was on the brink of victory in Sardinia when a steering issue in the final stage handed Dani Sordo’s Hyundai a shock win. Five years on, the very…

Briton Louis Foster took pole and led every lap to capture victory in Detroit and move closer to the Indy NXT championship lead as other title contenders struggled. Andretti Global driver Foster was thrust into safeguarding the top spot on multiple restarts as mayhem struck. Yet he was relatively unchallenged during the race, which featured four cautions for 14 of 45 laps, including a chequered-yellow finish. HMD Motorsports rookies Caio Collet and Callum Hedge finished second and third, while Myles Rowe put in a gritty performance to finish fourth from 19th. Foster now sits second in the table, 25 points behind leader Jacob Abel, who finished fifth. The other championship contender, Nolan Siegel, was hit with a half-shaft problem before the green flag even waved, with repairs putting him three…

SUPER GT SUZUKA (JPN) 2 JUNE ROUND 3/8 TOM’S Toyota duo Ukyo Sasahara and Giuliano Alesi scored their maiden Super GT win in last weekend’s third round of the season at Suzuka. Victory for their GR Supra ended a poor run of form for both drivers, who had finished no better than sixth since they paired up at the start of last season in what has become firmly established as the second car in the title-winning TOM’S stable. Sasahara and Alesi were fortunate to benefit from a late penalty for the ostensibly quicker Rookie Racing Toyota of Nirei Fukuzumi and Kazuya Oshima. That came for an unsafe release after the second round of mandatory pitstops in the three-hour race, and dropped Fukuzumi from the lead to fourth place. Sasahara had…

BRITISH GT Four-time British GT champion Jonny Adam has played down his chances of a fifth overall title in 2024 due to the pace of his Blackthorn Aston Martin Vantage. Adam narrowly lost out on another championship last year when driving a 2 Seas Mercedes alongside James Cottingham, before moving to Blackthorn for 2024. The team was only founded in 2022 but has already become a partner team of Aston Martin Racing, with factory driver Adam joining the project as it embarks on its maiden British GT season. The squad’s youthfulness caused Adam to adjust his expectations heading into the season and, after four rounds, he is already 61.5 points off the championship lead, with eighth at Silverstone his and team-mate Giacomo Petrobelli’s best result. “This is building blocks for…

CSCC Organisers of the Classic Sports Car Club’s Midget & Sprite Challenge believe even further growth is possible after a 29-car entry at Silverstone last weekend was its highest turnout for more than a decade. Now in its 48th season, the championship switched to the CSCC this year after the MG Car Club ceased its racing operations. With many MG Midgets and Austin-Healey Sprites already racing in the CSCC’s Swinging Sixties series, an additional class was created to cater for such cars. That alone attracted eight entries. “The synergy with the CSCC is what’s done it,” said chairman John Collinson. “It was definitely the right decision for us to make. They had quite a few Midgets in their Swinging Sixties, we had quite a few Midgets, and the plan was…

CSCC A new series aimed at cars competing in the Brands Hatch Mini Festival’s annual Fastest Mini in the World races kicked off at Silverstone last weekend. The Ultimate Mini Racing Series is sharing a grid with the Classic Sports Car Club’s Special Saloons & Modsports category in its inaugural season and is open to all classic Minis, with classes from stock historic to silhouette specials. Silverstone’s race attracted the past two Fastest Mini victors: Richard Billingham’s Vauxhall turbo-powered spaceframe and Harvey Death’s V8-engined version. “Our series was a natural fit,” said the CSCC category’s Danny Morris, noting the Special Saloon roots of many of the cars. “Obviously they’re a lot ‘more special’ now, and it’s a much freer series in terms of modifications. But we thought it would be…

SILVERSTONE CSCC 1 JUNE Andy Southcott bounced back from losing out in a dramatic conclusion to last Saturday’s first Special Saloons & Modsports race at Silverstone with a stirring drive to win the second. Fifty years since the launch of Super Saloons (see p68), pioneer Mick Hill’s son Greg put up the Mick Hill Memorial Trophy for the event, which fittingly attracted a spiritual successor to Hill’s Ford Capri V8 in Simon Light’s more modern version. But it was Danny Morris’s Cosworth-powered Peugeot 309 Thundersaloon that set the pace in qualifying, ahead of Southcott’s Vauxhall-motivated spaceframe MG Lenham Midget, the monstrous Austin-Healey 3000 – complete with Chevrolet V8 – of James Plant and fourth-fastest Light. Morris and Southcott broke away in the opener but neither would win. The 309 slowed…

When the popular Ingliston circuit on the outskirts of Edinburgh closed in 1994, Scottish motorsport was dealt a crucial blow. Already suffering from fewer resources than its siblings south of the border, it now had to make do with a single venue for club racers up and down the country. That single venue remains but, with the guidance of Knockhill Racing Circuit, two different circuits continue to exist in Scotland, courtesy of the unique ‘twin track’, which returned to operation in 2014 following a 30-year hiatus. Although the reverse direction configuration created – and perhaps continues to create – split opinion among competitors, the fact remains that Scotland desperately needs variety of circuit to attract local and visiting clubs for years to come. Knockhill’s director of events Stuart Gray believes…

SHELSLEY WALSH BRITISH HILLCLIMB 1-2 JUNE A dramatic day of hillclimbing played out under the sunshine last Sunday at Shelsley Walsh, and through it all Alex Summers kept a cool head to drive a perfect weekend and claim two more British Hillclimb Championship victories. However, the other big talking point was a high-speed accident that befell former points leader Matthew Ryder in his Gould GR59. Like several others, he fell foul of a hill that offered low levels of grip after the record wet winter. Summers was mighty, with the DJ Firestorm now back to its best. After earlier delays, it was fast approaching 1900 when he fired the car up the side of the Teme Valley in 23.33 seconds to make it four run-off wins in the last five.…

The much-discussed new ‘golden age’ of sportscar racing has definitely arrived. We reckon there are at least 14 genuine contenders for outright victory at this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours, and the field arrives following a first win in the modern era by a customer team. Porsche now has a much better understanding of its 963 than it did 12 months ago and has already won a 24-hour race this year, at Daytona. Gary Watkins assesses the big hitters on page 4 to see whether the German marque can beat Ferrari, Toyota et al to score a record 20th win in the greatest race. The recent success of Jota at Spa shows that a privateer can really compete in the Hypercar era, so we also remember the occasions on which…

Joest Racing had upheld Porsche honour at Le Mans in 1984 when the Rothmans factory cars stayed away over a dispute concerning the future direction of the fuel rules for Group C. But then there were plenty of other customers to do that: Porsche 956s filled out positions one to seven at the chequered flag. Twelve months later, with the works team back, Porsche Group C cars took the top five places. And once again Joest with 956, chassis #117, sat at the top of the order. Fuel mileage was the key to its success with Klaus Ludwig, Paolo Barilla and Louis Krages, the German who raced under the pseudonym ‘John Winter’, that year. The allocation for Le Mans under the Group C regulations had been cut from 2600 to…

The F1 GTR wasn’t the first McLaren to venture out on the hallowed asphalt of the Circuit de la Sarthe during Le Mans week. But 1995 was the race debut for the marque in the 24 Hours because the only previous attempt on the race by one of its cars ended in non-qualification by a massive margin. The car that attempted to make the cut in 1981 was a McLaren, though most definitely a ‘bitza’ special. It was dubbed an M6 GT after the stillborn road car project that was canned following company founder Bruce McLaren’s death in 1970 and did have the correct bodywork. But it was built around a monocoque from an M12 Can-Am Group 7 racer – a car borne of the M6 – that had been…

TERTRE ROUGE That’s probably the most annoying place to be overtaken in a GT car because you lose some front downforce, don’t get the good line and lose speed all the way down the straight. This makes it harder for us to overtake the GTs – because they don’t like it! If you have bad tyres and they have good tyres, it might be quite hard to make it in time. CHICANE AND ESSES It’s going to be a challenge, and there will be annoying situations where you come with hot tyres, they’re on cold tyres, you’re blocked somewhat. Everyone will deal with that at some point, so it’s about staying patient. MULSANNE STRAIGHT You want to overtake down the straight because it costs you less time and it’s safer,…

2023 POLES (HYPERPOLE) 2023 FASTEST LAPS HOW TO FOLLOW LE MANS As the biggest race on the sportscar racing calendar, there is no shortage of options to keep fans in the loop, whether you’re following along from home or at the track. Eurosport is the main broadcast partner for TV coverage. It’s now part of the discovery+ empire, and you can stream every practice and qualifying session – as well as the race – with a monthly subscription package. At £6.99, this allows you to watch Eurosport 1 and 2 on multiple devices simultaneously, with access to on-demand videos and a multi-camera view. All the latest news and reports will appear on autosport.com from the Test Day and throughout the week leading up to the race. Our team of journalists…